The book’s central time frame is the 1970s, when Bruce takes over a financial consultancy firm founded by his father, and Marisa inherits property. Love, lust and money are what drive them both, until their relationship meets its first challenge. Bruce retreats further into the world of commerce. Marisa’s interests are social and political. Twenty-five years on from their affair, a chance entry in one of Bruce’s business listings shows that Marisa is now boss of the Rae Agency – a media PR concern. Bruce, as he recollects their tumultuous relationship, is torn between his harmonious family life, and renewing contact with Marisa. Finally, when he does decide on a course of action, he has to face the truth of not having grasped the cultural separation their two different views of the world have wrought over the last quarter century.

A Novelized Account of the Life, Death, and Legacy of Ahmed Shah Massoud

FROM THAT FLAME follows journalist Michelle Garrett as she interviews the legendary Commander Ahmed Shah Massoud – the “Lion of Panjshir” – in Afghanistan’s rugged Hindu Kush Mountains. Without warning, an attack by Taliban and al-Qaeda troops propels Michelle into a wartime adventure with Commander Massoud and his Mujahidin, one in which a friendship between the journalist and Massoud grows, giving her a unique perspective into the man the Wall Street Journal credited as being “the Afghan who ended the Cold War.”

It is August 1863 and the Confederate Navy Cruiser Palmetto escapes from Charleston harbour to resume her career as a raider, hunting the shipping of the United States. The succeeding months see her range the Atlantic Ocean before facing a wild passage of Cape Horn, as her Captain Thomas Grover steers his ship for the Orient, seeking ever more victims in his mission to cripple the overseas commerce of the enemy. Martin Hicks lives in Fraserburgh in Aberdeenshire Scotland and began writing after a career in education. “An Instrument of War,” the sequel to “Palmetto,” is his tenth book, all of them set in the war of 1861-65. He is currently working on the third and final book of the “Palmetto” series. By the same author: A Gathering of Soldiers Hard Passage North The Rappahannock Line Mirage of Victory The Bitterest Enemy A Season for Killing A Deepening Twilight Bond of Blood Palmetto

A Novel

In his usual hard-edged prose, for which he is internationally famous, bestselling novelist Jack Engelhard (Indecent Proposal) draws us into the mind of a compulsive gambler in a work stunningly brilliant and original, and seductively readable. Compulsive is a journey through today, with issues as current as the morning paper, brought to the fore by characters as timeless as the Bible. All this processed through a mind addicted to gambling as surely as others are addicted to heroin. A brisk read by one of America’s most accomplished authors… not to be missed. Jack Engelhard, the last of the Hemingways, is a writer without peer and the conscience of us all.

A story of love, betrayal and the choices that define who we become. France, 1942 – In a time when friends become enemies and secrets are traded like currency, the forbidden love between a German officer and a young Frenchwoman can only lead to disaster. Against all odds and despite the obvious danger, Cédonie Boineau and Kommandant Kurt Auer get caught up in a romance they find impossible to resist.But as the illicit relationship builds, Cédonie’s ardent admirer and vindictive rival lurk in the shadows, and watch. Thibault Bosc nurses his unrequited love for Cédonie along with his growing hate for the Boche invaders, while Odette de Bary gathers gossip that will change the town forever.And when the war is finally over and truths come to the light, Cédonie is left at the mercy of the town to face her punishment. Author Paula Marais has woven a beautiful tale of the complex loyalties of the human heart and the surprising forms that love can take in war.

A story of love, betrayal and the choices that define who we become. France, 1942 – In a time when friends become enemies and secrets are traded like currency, the forbidden love between a German officer and a young Frenchwoman can only lead to disaster.
Against all odds and despite the obvious danger, Cédonie Boineau and Kommandant Kurt Auer get caught up in a romance they find impossible to resist.But as the illicit relationship builds, Cédonie’s ardent admirer and vindictive rival lurk in the shadows, and watch. Thibault Bosc nurses his unrequited love for Cédonie along with his growing hate for the Boche invaders, while Odette de Bary gathers gossip that will change the town forever.And when the war is finally over and truths come to the light, Cédonie is left at the mercy of the town to face her punishment. Author Paula Marais has woven a beautiful tale of the complex loyalties of the human heart and the surprising forms that love can take in war.

In the summer of 1981, Michael from Perth meets Kathrin from Berlin. It’s love. It’s East meets West, and East wins. The place where we are born and raised greatly shapes our lives and opinions. To those in the west, life behind the iron curtain was horrible and oppressive. But for the millions who lived there, it was a way of life and they did the best they could. Some are now even nostalgic for it. Ostalgie it’s called in Germany. For Michael Smith, East Germany fills all the gaps in his own life. He’s happy there. He wants to stay. Everything is within his reach. And yes he’s very naïve, and yes he’s ignoring a lot of bad to focus on the good, but ignorance really can be bliss. That is, until the Berlin Wall falls. He’s forced to watch as his beloved East Germans give up their country for the west, for everything he had rejected. By unification in 1990, their country and identity is all but forgotten. It’s then that the lies are discovered, the secrets revealed. How does he continue?

A Novel

How do you find a way to fit in when you don't really feel you belong? Hunter follows the stories of Eric, a teenage boy, and two men, one a Nazi from Austria and the other a Nazi from northern Germany. Eric has just moved from the country to the coastal town of Crescent Bay and has difficulty adjusting. To earn some money, he begins doing odd jobs for seniors and comes into contact with the two old men. Of Germany descent himself, Eric becomes fascinated by the men and the stories they tell. Are they Nazis? Should he contact the police? He discovers that one of the men has damning evidence against the other and he is forced to choose who to turn over to the police. Set during the Gulf War and with a backdrop of middle class Australian coastal life, Hunter is a coming of age story which poses some interesting questions about nationality, social acceptance, conformity and middle class suburban life in Australia. Winner of the 2009 Next Generation Indie Book Awards.

What lies between the devil and the deep blue sea?

When infamous smuggler Martin MacBride returns to Cornwall after escaping slavery in Algiers, he finds his wife and child have died. Fuelled by anger, the heartbroken smuggler vows to avenge their deaths by killing his hated foe, John Cardinham. However, Cardinham is riddled with a hatred of his own. He is convinced that his fiancée, beautiful local inn-keeper Josephine Bryant, is in love with MacBride, and intends to see the smuggler brought to justice at an appointment with the gallows. The locals of Cornwall pull together for their hero in a formidable force against the revenue, and Cardinham, finding he has his work cut out, hires the services of notorious privateer, Jose Sparky Vaquero, who proceeds to double-cross all concerned. Thus begins a twisting, turning journey of blackmail, obsession and suspicion. But when the stakes are high and the pressure is on, mistakes are easily made, and underestimation can prove to be a costly one. "Julie Spiller has found her inspiration in Cornwall's past, a rich seam of our history, as many writers from Daphne du Maurier to Winston Graham could testify, and she has mined it with colour and skill. It is a terrific piece of work and I wish her every success with it." Julian Fellowes, creator of Downton Abbey

Deceit. Treachery. Treasure. Lieutenant Jackson Prescott, having just survived the cornfield at Antietam in September of 1862, is tasked by President Lincoln to infiltrate a Confederacy group that has obtained five tons of gold for their side. In the present, the violent death of an FBI informant thrusts Special Agent Jason Sparks into a desperate search for the very same lost gold shipment &mdash; and his failure could mean his daughter's life. Two men separated by one hundred and fifty years face murder and betrayal while they fight to complete their missions. Two men, linked by a vast cache of gold&hellip; and the same piece of hallowed ground.

It is the time of Charlemagne. When pagan Saxon tribes invaded Hesse led by the legendary Widukind, Charles gathered a giant army at the Main. Arnulf, a destitute man, is forced into service within this army. During the bloody battles he achieves military exploits with his battle axe and wins the favor of the kings’ consultant Einhard. When Arnulf eventually destroys Irminsul, the biggest Saxon sanctuary, his future seems bright. But a hostage at the king’s court unravels the knight’s world: It is Widukind’s sister. And no axe or shield can help him against her charms…
With the first volume of the Arnulf/saga the author portraits the expiring 8th century, which is coined by superstition, brutality, godliness and passion. Across the whole Franconian camp there is the gulf between the civilized scholars, like Einhard, and the fanatic chaplain of Charles, who wants to exterminate the pagan belief. Both sides fight with all available means to expand their influence on the king.

This novel focuses on the problem of one of the minority groups in Egypt who are the Nubians, one of the oldest civilizations in the world who lived alongside the Nile River between Egypt and Sudan. Through the hero of this novel “Aguiba”, who is a Nubian Muslim born during the 1940’s, the reader lives the life of those minorities. Augiba is like all Nubians was forced to migrate from his homeland to avoid drowning after the Egyptian government decided to build Aswan Reservoir. He loses his wife and son during this process and hisdesperate quest becomes finding whetherthey are alive or not. Aguiba’s life is full of unusual events and his search for his family takes him from Cairo to Alexandria to Switzerland. In each place, he encounters different people and his identity changes so he becomes a Sudanese Christian in Alexandria, and in Switzerland he is a Swiss Jewish who works in currency smuggling. Aguiba’s quest makes him encounter Patricia who claims that she loves him and then he discovers that she is using him. The same thing happens with Badr, whom he thought was his friend and turns to be an opportunist whowants to put his hands on the land that Aguiba has inherited in Nuba. When Aguiba discovers that he was deceived by those close people, he decides to change all his plans, ignoring that he has bought a one-way ticket to Cairo.

Sheikh Zayed Literature Award 2014

“Al- Mahmoudi” is the only Egyptian that won one of Sheikh Zayed Book Awards for 2014, that include 8 categories, for which tens of writers across the Arab world compete.The novel addresses the social texture, the topographic nature, and the anthropological features of the Egyptian village in 1940s. It’s inspired by the classical and original international narrative conventions. It is an incarnation of smartness of narration, smooth sequence of events, and accuracy of portraying characters from childhood until elderliness. In addition, this novel is distinguished by an accurate depiction of the narrative world, drawing spaces, analyzing characters in their transitions between hope and disappointment, and combination of reality and legend in one frame.”In (After Coffee)”novel, there is a long epic style, through a journey extended for four consecutive decades. It displays the life of its expatriate hero, who was born in one of North Egypt villages, and had his early education in Ismailia, one of the canal cities. Then, he moved to Europe in a long diplomatic business trip in the city of classical music and world symphonies, Austria, the native country of Beethoven and Mozart.The writer was outstanding in playing on the relationship that ties the hero to his fevered and great fondness of music, the matter that will get the events develop in line with the interest in food, methods of cooking, and its different ways, as being one of the manifestations of cultural and anthropological diversity among populations. The writer did so in such a manner that presents the idea of intertextuality with another well-known novel for the Mexican experienced novelist “Laura Esquivel” in her marvelous novel “Boiling”, whose chapters are based on recipes and their ingredients. The novel (with its epic style and attribute) is derived also from the folklore and Arabic and world legendary heritage, in such a manner that invokes the great recitals and immortal legends that created the sentiment of mankind and that have an everlasting role of forming the creative and artistic consciousness of man all over ages. The writer implied in his novel hints that Youssef story refers to many things, that will take every ounce of your concentration when you discover the startling surprises that are always derived from multiple cultural resources. Youssef Story- in addition to the Egyptian folklore- includes explicit or implicit references to the three heavenly books, the Greek legends, especially what was mentioned in the Illiad and Odyssey works by Homer, in particular the story of the loss of Odysseys during his journey back home after his war on Troy, and a number of immortal world novels such as “TheBrothers Karamazov” by Dostoevsky and”Faust” by Thomas Mann.

Three Ladies in Cairo takes the reader through an original and very personal story of three generations of Swedish women through which the evolution and the transformation of Egypt during three vital decades is apparent. The bookunfolds through three intertwined destinies of three ladies the grandmother whose husband worked asjudge at the Mixed Courts, the daughter who was married to the Swedish Ambassador to Egypt and, finally, the granddaughter who was educated in Cairo and is the author of this work.Through those three ladies, crucial stages in contemporaryEgyptian history is reflected and three contrasting snapshots of this country ‘in movement’ areshown. The grandmother Hilda reflects the colonial Egypt when people were still searching for their independence. At this time, Cairo was a refined and cosmopolitan city, where, despite its two million inhabitants, it remained a charmingplace to live in. The mother Ingrid who grew up amongst Cairo’s magnificent Europeanmansions, gives an inside view of the political revolution that transformed Egyptfrom a monarchy into an authoritarian socialist state. Finally, the author, Anne, describes thedemographic revolution that gradually turned Cairo into today’s sprawling mega-poleof 20 million inhabitants who suffer from noise and misery.The originality of this book lies not only in its fragmented vision of Egyptian history, but also in the stark contrast between the harsh reality of today that the author discovers after years of absence, and the magical memories of the past that was transmitted toher from the previous generations of her family. She gives us a documented andmoving testimony that allows us to share the passion that these three generations of Swedish women have held to Egypt.

Winner of Katara Prize For Arabic Novel 2016

In Al-Azbakia, Nasser Iraq endeavors to draw on the past, specifically the time when Muhammad Ali Pasha ruled Egypt, in an attempt to make sense of the present. His purpose is to shed light on some of today’s details that many fail to recognize as nothing more than a glimpse, or in one way or another a continuation, of the past.The novel gives a realistic aura to historical moments that makes them more glorious and lively; a rhythm that brings them from the past to our present without losing their freshness or making them less surprising. The novel captures such realistic moments so vividly that they touch your soul and enter your heart. You feel them so that you begin to think that you went into a trance, travelling times and distances to live within the world depicted by the story. You start to live with its heroes, sharing their happy and sad moments and dreams and nightmares. There, between the lines and sentences, you meet with some well-known names, like Muhammad Ali Pasha, Abdulrahman Al Jabarti and Napoleon Bonaparte, and some others, like Ayoub, Shaldam, Khawaja (a colloquial form of address for a foreigner) Sharl and Mese’ada Hijab, that you will never meet except in this novel. The writer does a good job of picking up his characters and sketching them. The historical facts do not prevent him from creating fictional characters to whom he quickly gives flesh, blood and ideas. Events gets intertwined, and characters interact lively to create a world of dynamic events and people breathing life between facts supported by history and fiction to which the writer gives a realistic touch as it becomes an imaginary reality.

Lady Winifred had a troubled childhood. Her mother, father and brother were all imprisoned for treason due to their support for the Catholic king. When she falls in love with a handsome young Scottish nobleman, the marriage brings happiness. However, she is forced to rebel when her husband takes up the Jacobite cause and vows to restore the Catholic king to the throne. While Winifred wants to be loyal to her husband, she also wants to protect him from imprisonment – and worse, the scaffold! Just how far will she go to save him?

# 1 in the Bregdan Chronicles Historical Fiction Romance Series

Review: Best Historical Fiction series I have ever read! Keep them coming! ~ Dotti I expected to like this book. I did not expect to be hooked! This series is, quite simply, the best historical fiction I have ever read. I’m in love with the characters, I can’t sleep because I’m too busy reading, I have learned more than I ever thought possible, and I’ve been inspired to become a better person. My advice to you? READ THEM! ~ Jeri Storm Clouds Rolling In is the first book in the ongoing Bregdan Chronicles historical novel series. It's readers like you who have turned it into a world-wide best-seller. Thank you! ____________________________ Book Description: Carrie Cromwell comes of age as the dark clouds of the Civil War swallow the country. Born with a fiery spirit and a strong mind, this strong woman finds herself struggling between the common wisdom of the South and the devastating truth she has discovered. The activities of the Underground Railroad and her close friendships with the Cromwell Plantation slaves create agonizing choices. But when her decisions put her at odds with her heritage, and challenge her dreams, will she be able to give up all that is precious to her? What price will she be willing to pay? ________________________ This first book of The Bregdan Chronicles historical fiction series will pull you in and never let you go. You'll experience the Civil War era (and all the years to come) through the eyes of both White and Black, free & slave, Southern & Northern - and you'll fall in love with every character. How many books will there be? Ginny has no idea - she intends to write these character's stories for as long as she can!

# 2 in the Bregdan Chronicles Historical Fiction Romance Series

On To Richmond is the second book in the Bregdan Chronicles historical fiction series. As of today, there are 10 books in the series. Make sure you start reading with # 1 – Storm Clouds Rolling In. It's readers like you who have turned the series into a world-wide best-seller. Thank you!Book Description: Burdened with the responsibility of running an entire plantation, Carrie Cromwell fights to understand the forces tearing her beloved country apart. As battles rage around her, she watches as her life slowly unravels and she discovers truths she would never have imagined.Will her actions and decisions push her even further from those she loves? When the danger she dreads becomes reality, will she find the courage and strength to escape?Robert is pulled into battle, facing things he would never have imagined. Moses and Rose face a great loss, and then make a decision that could claim their lives.Everyone struggles to survive and live in a country that has exploded into Civil War.This second book of The Bregdan Chronicles historical fiction series will pull you in and never let you go. You'll experience the Civil War era (and all the years to come) through the eyes of both White and Black, free & slave, Southern & Northern - and you'll fall in love with every character.How many books will be in the Bregdan Chronicles? No one knows yet… Ginny intends to write these character's stories, one year at a time, for as long as she is able to write. She is passionate about bringing history to life through historical fiction. Since she is amazingly healthy, that could be for a very long time! She doesn’t like stories to end any more than you do. This one won't end for a very long time!

# 3 in the Bregdan Chronicles Historical Fiction Romance Series

Spring Will Come is the third book in the Bregdan Chronicles historical fiction series. As of today, there are 10 books in the series. Make sure you start reading with # 1 – Storm Clouds Rolling In. It's readers like you who have turned the series into a world-wide best-seller. Thank you!Book Description: As her beloved city of Richmond is transformed into a deadly Civil War battlefield, spirited Carrie Cromwell puts her medical skills to work in a Confederate hospital. While she fights to save unknown soldiers, the one she cares about the most is lost to her when Robert disappears in battle. She must also deal with a family secret that has finally come to light.Meanwhile, Rose and Moses have found freedom at last - only to be separated by war. Can Moses, now a Union spy, elude those who are searching for him as a runaway slave, and also help those he thought he would never see again?Rose, inspired by a revolutionary young speaker, becomes a teacher in the contraband camps.Everyone struggles to survive and live in a country that has exploded into Civil War.This third book of The Bregdan Chronicles historical fiction series will pull you in and never let you go. You'll experience the Civil War era (and all the years to come) through the eyes of both White and Black, free & slave, Southern & Northern - and you'll fall in love with every character.How many books will be in the Bregdan Chronicles? No one knows yet… Ginny intends to write these character's stories, one year at a time, for as long as she is able to write. She is passionate about bringing history to life through historical fiction. Since she is amazingly healthy, that could be for a very long time! She doesn’t like stories to end any more than you do. This one won't end for a very long time!